Hercules (7/10)

Whoever first thought of making Dwayne Johnson into a full fledged actor was a genius. Johnson has got the wattage to light up the whole country of Brunei. His star power is undeniable.

But most of the credit has to go to Johnson himself who has shown professionalism and great work ethics when it comes to acting. Someone opened the door for him all those years ago, but he trained really hard to get himself to where he is today. And he's an entertainer.

This movie was a great move for Johnson. Physically, nobody would deny him as Hercules. But this movie wasn't really about a demi-God. From the start, the audience would find out the deception and illusion Hercules and his rag-tag mercenaries employed. And nothing wrong with that, it's pure fun.

If you can leave your brain at the door, this is a fun-filled action fluff piece. Brett Ratner isn't a great storyteller. But when he does something right, it can be highly entertaining. This was his "something right".

He introduced each character on Team Hercules as best as he could with all those difficult to pronounce names from even more difficult to pronounce places. And he showcased each of their skills and personality in the most fun way, and I thoroughly enjoyed Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Aksel Hennie, Reese Ritchie and Ingrid Bolso Berdal. Especially McShane and Sewell who thrive in these types of roles respectively.

(Berdal could have had more professional training with a bow as she didn't look as convincing with it - her pulling arm's elbow kept dropping. Every time I saw her in action, I thought of how well Orlando Bloom and Jennifer Lawrence did it.)

Rounding off the supporting cast were the great John Hurt and Joseph Fiennes, and another fresh face, Rebecca Ferguson. All 3 supported the movie very well, with the material given to them of course.

But much of the success should go to the writing team of newcomer Ryan Condal and animated movie veteran Evan Spiliotopoulos. Together with Ratner they have managed to create a nice pace and made a thin storyline looked impressive.

However, Ratner being Ratner still fell short when he had to make sense during climactic scenes which he very competently created. A few times in the movie during pivotal scenes, one person in one small act always seem to be enough to turn dire situations around for the heroes. If you can get passed the score and the tension Ratner so skillfully created, you will see that some scenes were just silly.

One such example was the chariots coming to the rescue. Another was how Fiennes' character was written towards the end, the looseness of it was to make way for the weak story to move forward. And this happened quite a few times as well throughout the movie.

But with Johnson's surprisingly believable accent, great supporting cast, great characters and some great comedic scenes, the movie as a whole was very entertaining.